The British Museum uses cookies to ensure you have the best browsing experience
and to help us improve the site.
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to
our use of cookies. (Last updated: 12 January 2017)
Find out more

Hoards
the hidden history of ancient Britain

The Selby hoard of ceramic vessels and
Roman silver coins dating up to AD 181. Found in Yorkshire in 2010.
Acquired with the support of Richard Witschonke and the American
Friends of the British Museum.

Discover buried treasure in a display that
focuses on hoarding in prehistoric and Roman Britain. Find out the
various reasons why ancient people put precious objects into the
ground and why they did not retrieve them.

People have been placing metalwork
and valuable objects in the ground and in water since the Bronze
Age (c. 2200–800 BC). These prehistoric hoards are widely accepted
as having been deposited as part of ritual practices. Later hoards
were traditionally seen as a response to invasion threats and
economic upheaval – riches buried in the ground to be retrieved at
a later date. The 2010 discovery of a huge Roman coin hoard in
Frome in Somerset raised many questions about this traditional
interpretation, suggesting that ritual practices also played a part
in the burial of Roman hoards.

Coins of the usurper Roman emperor
Carausius dating from AD 286–293 from the Frome hoard. Found in
Somerset in 2010.

This display showcases some recent
discoveries of hoards reported through the Treasure Act and studied
at the British Museum. It begins with the large metalwork deposits
of the Bronze and Iron Ages such as the Salisbury hoard and weapons
found in the River Thames at Broadness.

The display finishes with objects
from the hoards found at Oxborough and Hoxne, buried in the years
following the end of Roman Britain (in AD 410). These treasures
have varied stories and interpretations – they may have been
accidentally lost or stolen, discarded as worthless, saved for
recycling, hidden for safekeeping, or even offered up to the gods.
Together, they tell a fascinating story – a hidden history of
ancient Britain.

Spearheads from a late Bronze Age hoard of
tools and weapons, 1000–750 BC. Found in the River Thames at
Broadness in Kent.

Miniature Iron Age shields from the
Salisbury hoard, c. 200–100 BC. Found in Wiltshire in 1985.

The display draws on the results of
the joint British Museum/Leicester University AHRC-funded research
project Crisis or continuity? Hoarding in Iron Age and Roman
Britain which is investigating the places hoards were buried
and what they can tell us about wider social and economic
changes.